'No more fears' for sister in Pacifica after father affirms Filipino freed

Cicero A. Estrella, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Photo: Michael Maloney

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Lydia Ghazzawi is still overcome with happiness in her Pacifica apartment as she makes breakfast for relatives and friends.
Angelo de la Cruz, a Filipino truck driver held hostage in Iraq for nearly two weeks was freed Tuesday, a day after his nation withdrew its final peacekeepers from Iraq. His sister, Pacifica resident Lydia Ghazzawi never gave up hope and is now planning a reunion in the Phillippines with her brother.
Photo by Michael Maloney / San Francisco Chronicle less

Lydia Ghazzawi is still overcome with happiness in her Pacifica apartment as she makes breakfast for relatives and friends.
Angelo de la Cruz, a Filipino truck driver held hostage in Iraq for nearly two weeks ... more

Photo: Michael Maloney

'No more fears' for sister in Pacifica after father affirms Filipino freed

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Her father's word wasn't enough for a skeptical Lydia Ghazzawi. During an early morning long-distance call Tuesday to the Philippines, Feliciano dela Cruz told his daughter in Pacifica that her brother had been released by the Iraqi insurgents who had held him hostage for two weeks.

"Are you sure?" asked Ghazzawi. Her father said yes before handing the phone over to a Philippine government official for further confirmation. Only then did Ghazzawi allow herself a big sigh of relief.

Ghazzawi, after two weeks of false and conflicting reports, finally celebrated the release of her brother, Angelo dela Cruz, a Filipino citizen and contract worker in Saudi Arabia, who was captured in Iraq and threatened with a beheading by a group that calls itself the Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps of the Islamic Army in Iraq.

The insurgent group said it would release dela Cruz, 46, only after the Philippine government withdrew its 51-person peacekeeping contingent from Iraq. The government agreed to the demand last week and pulled the last of its troops from Iraq Monday.

Ghazzawi knew of the withdrawal before falling asleep in front of her television Monday night, but she was unsure of her brother's fate.

"I was still worried," said Ghazzawi, 35. "I wasn't comfortable. I didn't know what was going to happen next to my brother. But now I can relax. There are no more fears."

Ghazzawi felt similar elation two weekends ago after the Philippine government said that dela Cruz had been freed. The news was erroneous, and an emotionally exhausted Ghazzawi said she would trust no other reports except from her family.

Ghazzawi was awakened at 1:15 a.m. by a message left on her answering machine by a local newspaper informing her of dela Cruz's release. She then called her father, whom the Philippine government has been hosting at Clark air base in Angeles City near the family's home province of Pampanga.

Ghazzawi also spoke to two of dela Cruz's eight children but doesn't expect to speak to her brother until later in the week.

She watched news reports of her brother after his release to the United Arab Emirates Embassy and thought him thinner but otherwise healthy.

"He looks a lot better than he did kneeling in front of three masked people (on footage released by his captors)," she said.

Ghazzawi, a cashier at Home Depot, and her husband, Khaled, a bus driver for SamTrans, took personal leaves from their jobs to keep apprised of developments surrounding dela Cruz. They spent the past two weeks glued to the TV and on constant long-distance calls to Lydia Ghazzawi's family in the Philippines and her brother Willie, who like Angelo is a contract worker in Saudi Arabia.

A sleep-deprived Ghazzawi was running on adrenaline Tuesday morning as she insisted on making omelets and coffee for the stream of reporters who visited the family's one-bedroom apartment. The first reporters knocked on her door at 5:30 a.m.

The family, which also includes son John Paul, 5, plans to reunite with dela Cruz in the Philippines.

Ghazzawi extended her thanks to those who gave words of encouragement, including strangers who called her on her home phone.

"I didn't know some of the people," she said. "They would say, 'I don't know you, you don't know me, but I support your brother.' "

Dela Cruz drove a truck for a Saudi Arabia company and was taken hostage after crossing the Iraqi border two weeks ago. He supports a wife and eight children (ages 4 through 25).